


whisper softly so nobody hears

by wearecities (falsetto)



Series: golden thread [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, F/M, Genderswap, M/M, Schmoop, always a girl! Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsetto/pseuds/wearecities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam can kinda see why she does it, the black brings out her eyes more and whatever she’s brushing on now has her cheekbones standing out sharp and prominent on her face. But Liam likes her sleepy and disheveled, faded acne scars on her cheeks, curled up in a tour t-shirt two sizes too big and a pair of Liam’s boxers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	whisper softly so nobody hears

**Author's Note:**

> thank you x a million to [shannon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dicktective/pseuds/nouams) for beta-ing and working her magic on my awful grammar. 
> 
> this is the first fic i've written in like two years and it's entirely self indulgent and schmoopy so. enjoy? i'm relatively new to actually participating in this fandom so come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://wearecities.tumblr.com/) if you wish (:

Liam’s been ready for at least half an hour when he pads back into the bedroom, a mug of tea in each hand. Louis’s cross-legged in the middle of the rumpled duvet, still in bed clothes with a mirror in one hand and her makeup bag tipped out next to her, hair pulled out of her eyes. She pulls a face at Liam when he steps into the room and then glances at herself in the mirror, giggling when she catches her own eye, because no one makes Louis laugh as much as herself.

“Made you tea,” Liam says, although it’s pretty obvious because it’s a routine. He does this every morning that he and Louis are lucky enough to wake up tangled together without too much of a time restraint or with Liam flying off to another part of the world.

“Thanks, love,” Louis replies once she’s done making ridiculous faces at herself and she glances over at the steam curling into the air where Liam has set the mugs down. They were a gift from a fan, the mugs. They’re not anything special, but they’re curved in a way, if you put them against each other, they fit perfectly. Louis had scoffed at them, adamant that they were disgustingly cheesey, but the first time Liam had made their morning tea in them she’d smiled sleepy, soft and set her mug right against Liam’s after she was done before fitting against him herself. Louis never uses them when Liam’s not home though but he’s pretty sure that has nothing to do with her distaste for them.

Making a pleased noise at the back of her throat, she tilts her head up to where Liam’s standing at the side of the bed, towering over her, and puckers her lips and crosses her eyes. Liam laughs a little, rolls his eyes, because everything’s a game to her, and places a hand on the bed just behind Louis’ bum so he can lean down.

Liam doesn’t have to be in the studio until one and Louis had peered out the window demanding to tag along as there was literally not a cloud in the sky -- an extremely rare sight in the middle of London. It meant she could lounge in the garden behind the studio with Zayn, whilst Liam did his part, or play footie with Harry. Well, Louis could play football. Harry could pretend he knew what the offside rule was and that he didn’t have two left feet.

It’s pretty well known that Louis is the honorary fourth member of One Direction, having gone through to the live shows of the X-Factor alongside them as a solo artist, but eventually losing out to Wagner. Of all people.

It still makes Liam’s blood boil when he thinks about it, despite Louis reassuring him that she’s probably happier here, finishing her teaching degree, visiting her mum and brothers pretty much every weekend, and occasionally getting to watch her three best friends perform onstage in front of thousands of people. And having Liam catch her eye in the crowd as she sings along. 

She’s singing now but softer and in her real voice, not the screeching one she puts on when she wants to wake up Liam from a nap. Or the chipmunk tone she uses when she’s cradling Loki like a newborn and singing made up nursery rhymes.

For as long as Liam has know her she’s had playlists for different parts of the day all neatly labeled like _’shower time!’_ or _’missing home ):’_ or _’harry and louis’ 5 days of fun’_. Liam’s personal favourite is _’seduction 101’_ ; it involves a lot of Frank Ocean and Usher. But it’s probably the situation he likes more than the actual songs on it; after the third track Liam’s usually otherwise occupied.

Right now she’s got ‘ _getting ready: no rush! :D_ ’ on and Liam knows this one has to be heavily influenced by Niall -- who works a graveyard slot on Radio 1 and sends Louis new music pretty much every day -- because there’s a lot of Lucy Rose and Passenger waxing poetic about love and a few days ago Harry had finally pulled his head out of his arse and ended up with it on Niall’s pillow the morning after.

Louis’s scrutinizing her eyebrows now, mirror held close to her face and she furrows her brow and glances over at Liam where he’s sprawled on his front watching her, absentmindedly scrolling through his phone. Liam just kind of shrugs at her because, well, they look like eyebrows. Slightly darker and more defined. But still just eyebrows. He tries to look approving but Louis just rolls her eyes mutters something about X and Y chromosomes and then decides to lunge at Liam, eyebrow pencil in hand.

After dating Louis for 2 years Liam is pretty much on edge half the time, the other half of the time is when he gets nipple twists. Or swear words drawn on his arm in sharpie before a photoshoot. Or pushed into a pond at Louis’s mum’s wedding reception. Which is why, now, he easily grabs Louis’ wrist, stopping her before the pencil gets close to his face.

“Louis,” He says and she pulls out her innocent face, but her hand holding the pencil is drawing lines in the air above Liam’s head.

“ _Liam_ ,” She mimics, still trying to wriggle her wrist out of his grasp. Liam doesn’t let up and Louis just stares at him, eyes slowly narrowing and it’s then that the final chords of the song, one about bikes, fades out and something entirely familiar starts to ring out of the tinny speakers of Louis’ macbook. It’s entirely too familiar because Liam helped write it, sang on it and has just finished a sold out tour promoting the album it was on. Louis’ tries to keep up her glare but Liam raises an eyebrow and her resolve cracks, a faint blush colouring her cheeks under the layer of foundation.

“I don’t know how this got on there,” She states indignantly and this might not be her ‘ _getting ready: no rush! :D_ ’ playlist but her ‘ _getting ready: liam gone AWOL :(_ ’ mix, which explains all the love songs and none of her usual Beyoncé, which she claims helps her get energised for the day. The momentary distraction has Liam loosening his grip and Louis pulls away, scrambling for her laptop to change the song, but Liam manages to pull her back before she makes it off the bed.

“Hey, no,” Liam says and, although he knows millions of people listen to his music this is different. “I like this one.”

Louis stares at him for a long time, long enough for the chorus to hit it’s crescendo, before plopping back down onto the bed, scattering her makeup.

“Vain,” Louis sniffs, but the blush is still faint on her cheeks and Liam knows it’s not artificial, she always puts that on last, and this maybe isn’t the first time Liam’s just watched her get ready.

It takes all of 30 seconds before she’s singing along to this as well, drawing a thick black line on her upper eyelid ending it with a flick as it reaches the outer corner. She’s not singing the main melody though, Zayn’s voice is smooth as it filters into their bedroom and Louis’s picking out Liam’s harmony above it. It’s hard for Liam not to join in too but he doesn’t want to end this moment, her face is calm and open. And even if she knows Liam is pretty blatantly staring at her, she doesn’t mention it and doesn’t tease him, which is a rare feat for her, really.

It reaches Harry’s part and she stops singing, hums along with the melody instead whilst she lines the other eyelid. Liam can kinda see why she does it, the black brings out her eyes more and whatever she’s brushing on now has her cheekbones standing out sharp and prominent on her face. But Liam likes her sleepy and disheveled, faded acne scars on her cheeks, curled up in a tour t-shirt two sizes too big and a pair of Liam’s boxers.

The bed dips under a new weight and suddenly there’s a bundle of black fur darting across the duvet and straight into Louis. For being the person who actually bought Loki, he’s feeling kind of betrayed, but he can forgive, it’s pretty hard not to love Louis. Not that Liam has ever really tried.

“Hey, Loki baby, how’s it going?” Louis bundles up the puppy, forgetting her preening for a second. Liam finds it a little sad that Loki gets more pet names than she ever uses on him, most of the names he gets are insults. “I still don’t forgive you for naming our puppy after a evil super villain, by the way.” And Liam doesn’t really want to get into a debate about how misunderstood Loki is, so he flops onto his back instead, stretches his arms above his head until they graze Louis’ thigh.

“Well, leave it up to you and he would be called Bruce or Trevor.” Because Louis is the type of girl who finds comedy in naming animals relatively normal names. Which is why they’re holding off on getting a kitten, because Liam had promised the naming rights go to Louis this time and he doesn’t want to have to talk about _Lionel_ or _Nick_ the tabby cat.

Louis huffs and drops Loki on the floor with a kiss to his fur before making her way across the room to the closet. They don’t officially live together, but they might as well, with the fact that 90% of the stuff in the house is Louis’, including the giant Spiderman statue taking up half the hallway and the octopus shaped teapot in the kitchen downstairs, which Liam doesn’t really understand because it has eight spouts and he can never really remember which one is the real one. But Liam’s a little too chicken to ask and Louis’ too stubborn to put herself out there. So, for now, this is good enough until they fall into one of their bi-monthly blow outs and Zayn has to hit their heads together.

She’s wearing a threadbare pair of leggings she’d hastily pulled on to let Loki out of the house this morning and the sun through the window has them see through enough that the lines of her thong are evident, stretching across the curve of her bum as she bends down to pick a stray sock off the floor. Liam watches, distracted for a second because Louis is gorgeous and it’s hard not to get lost in her.

There’s a moment of silence between one song and the next and Liam spends it watching the line of her back, the slight curve of her breasts showing as she slips off her sleep t-shirt, discarding it on the floor next to her leggings, which she’d pulled off moments earlier. She’s left in just her thong before she’s grabbing her bra, clasping it behind her back, shoulder muscles moving with the way her arm is bent.

The moment is entirely ruined when the opening beat to the next song starts and Chris Brown’s voice fills the room instead of the ethereal crooning of Daughter a second ago. “Really?” Liam groans, because a song about stripping whilst Louis is getting dressed is entirely too ironic. But Louis just giggles and starts to sing, pulling her jeans up her thighs. Her voice definitely isn’t suited to sexy R’n’B, but it works and it has Liam leaning up on his elbows as she sways her hips.

She’s wearing completely unholy, skin-tight, black jeans now, the cuffs rolled up and Liam can pretty much guarantee she’s only shaved the bottom of her legs in preparation. Her feet are bare, nail paint chipped, and she curls her toes in the rug as she rummages through Liam’s half of the closet for a top which she pulls out with an ‘aha!’ before slipping it over her head. It’s pretty nondescript, one of the Saint Kidd ones Dougie had sent him earlier in the year, but Louis’ worn it enough times that it’s hard to tell who it belongs to. It hangs off her smaller frame, collar low enough to show the start of her cleavage. And, well, Liam’s not going to complain about that.

“I feel very close to this song, thank you very much,” Louis says, all indignant with her hands on her hips just as Chris Brown sings about backing it up ‘ _beep beep like a trucker_ ’. Liam groans and falls back onto the bed, hiding his face in his hands because, _really_ , he at least thought he’d fall in love with someone with a little self preservation.

She giggles from somewhere much closer to Liam and then his hands are being prised off his face and there are legs straddling his where they’re hanging off the edge of the bed. Planting a hand either side of Liam’s head, she leans over enough that the stray hair from her ponytail tickles Liam’s face. He scrunches up his nose and tries to blow it away unsuccessfully. She smiles then, eyes crinkling with a look of half adoration and half ‘you’re an idiot’ because Liam’s hands are free and he could easily just tuck it behind her ear, but he’s made a unanimous decision that holding onto her waist is much more important.

Ducking down enough to nudge the tips of their noses together she lets out a soft breath of air before leaning down that little bit more, brushing her lips against his. She hums, soft, in the back of her throat and tightens her thighs where they’re placed on either side of Liam’s hips. He cups her jaw, thumbing at the peak of her cheekbones.

“You’re going to mess up my makeup,” She mumbles, because that’s all you can really manage when your lips are still pressed against someone else’s.

“I’m not the one who put erotic songs on my Spotify playlist,” Liam huffs but there’s no heat behind it, there hardly ever is when he’s talking to Louis. But she kisses him again, just soft presses of her lips, and nudges her bare toes against the side of his leg.

“Do my sleeves, please,” She asks simply as she pulls back far enough so that Liam can’t keep pulling her back in. Liam rolls his eyes, but she doesn’t go to move so Liam guesses he’s going to do this with Louis holding her own weight above him, grinning from under the halo of her hair.

Starting with the left sleeve he unrolls it completely from where it’s become wrinkled in the closet before folding it carefully up her arm, the way she’s started doing after spending way too much time with Harry. They’re a little long on her, because her shoulders don’t fill out the t-shirt as much as Liam does, so he folds it a few extra times, enough to fully show the text inked on the inside of her bicep. He hesitates for a second before pressing a kiss there and moving onto the right because. Well.

The thing is, Liam is completely and utterly in over his head with Louis. She’s unfairly beautiful, stretched above him, tracking Liam’s movements with her eyes, and Liam gets that. Liam gets that completely, because since the moment they met he literally hasn’t been able to stop looking at her. Whether she’s stretched out in the garden sunbathing. Or hot, sweaty, and panting under him. Or trying to pin Liam down long enough on the kitchen floor to get him to smell her feet. He can’t stop watching her.

It’s probably a little creepy when he lays there an extra half hour after he’s woken up so he doesn’t bother Louis from where she’s sprawled out next to him, hair fanned across her pillow and face smushed so her cheeks are rounded and puffed out. Even when there’s definitely a little drool in the corner of her mouth, they’ve got morning breath, and her legs are a little prickly.

But Liam can never find it in himself to really care, because this is the Louis who wakes up at stupid times of the morning so they can Skype when he’s halfway across the globe, who smiles politely at his fans even though half of them send her abuse, and the same Louis who laughed at him for an hour straight when he cried after Toy Story 3 ended. The same Louis who was there, standing at the side of the stage to pick up Liam piece by piece, when they didn’t win the X Factor.

He finishes rolling up the other arm, flattens it so it stays in place, before running his hand down Louis’ side, fingers curling into her waist.

“No kiss for this arm?” Louis says. And it’s meant to be teasing, but there’s a pouting edge to it that has Liam smiling and pushing up, starting off with a press of lips before he’s biting down softly on the fleshy part of her bicep. Her squawk is more of a groan and her arms give way so that she’s chest to chest with Liam and he doesn’t hesitate in cupping her jaw and sliding their mouths together.

Although Liam loves it when Louis’ all pliant and willing underneath him, keening against the skin of his neck, he likes it just as much when she presses her hips against his, anchoring him down with a hand sliding up his shirt as she thumbs at the lines of his stomach.

She makes this lovely, unabashed whimper and it slips right into Liam’s mouth, settles a shiver in his spine. He’s not doing much, just kissing back and trailing his hands down Louis’ spine, thumbs dipping under the waistband of her jeans. But it amazes him that he can still have this effect on Louis, have her squirming, hands never stilling as they find another part of Liam’s body to pay attention to.

She pulls away a millimetre or so, enough to gasp for air. Liam leans up a little and nips at her bottom lip, holding himself up with a hand splayed across the curve of Louis’ bum which has their hips lining up perfectly, a sweet slide of pleasure jolting a moan out of his own mouth.

Of course, it’s then, in that sweet moment where they’re kind of just staring at each other, breath mingling, Louis’ resting her forehead against Liam’s, that the track on Louis’ laptop changes and familiar clapping sounds filter out. Louis starts laughing, loud in the previous silence and Liam sighs, falling back onto the bed.

“Moment killed?” She manages through her giggles, trying to muffle them in the crook of Liam’s neck.

“Kinda, yeah,” Liam huffs but he’s laughing too, rubbing a hand down Louis’ back as she shakes with the force of her laughing fit. “Don’t fancy having sex to the sound of my best friend singing.”

“Mmmm, I don’t know about that.” She pushes off Liam and settles her hand on his chest, rocking her hips in slow languid circles, the denim of Liams jeans rubbing against his cock and, well, if Liam wasn’t interested before he definitely is now. But then Louis’ singing along, “ _hit the pedal, heavy metal_ ,” and Liam really can’t do this.

“Oi,” Liam growls, pinches Louis’ side. “You are _not_ getting off on Zayn’s singing.” Louis giggles, the full-blown-eyes-crinkled-head-thrown-back one she reserves for moments she’s caught off guard and she’s hopping off Liam’s lap, heading for the door.

“C’mon Li-Li it’s time to be a popstar,” She croons, shutting her laptop on her way past.

“You did that on purpose.” Because now Liam’s half-hard and watching the way Louis’ jeans hug her bum as she walks away. She’s in the doorway before she turns round and winks at Liam.

“What’re you going to do about it, Payno?” Liam gives her a 3 second head start even though she knows its coming, because part of their completely adult relationship is tickle fights, pinching and Louis biting him in public places, before jumping off the bed and running after her. Even though she’ll vehemently deny it later, the sound she lets out is more a squeal than anything, once she hears his footsteps thumping on the wooden floor and she takes off down the stairs, jumping the last 3 and ending up sprawled on the ground.

The amount of noise they’re making has attracted Loki’s attention -- as well as their neighbours, probably, which wouldn’t be the first time -- and he scampers towards Louis from his nest of blankets on the sofa, barking loud and trying to lick at Louis’ face. She’s laughing hysterically, hands over her eyes.

“Man down, man down!” Liam shouts into the imaginary walkie-talkie hooked onto the lapel of his denim jacket. He rushes down the last few steps, drops to his knees next to Louis. She tries to wiggle away when he presses an ear to her chest, feigns checking her pulse, but she’s also trying to stop Loki from licking her mouth, so it pretty much gives him free reign.

From where she’s been struggling, her t-shirt has rucked up, the tanned, smooth curve of her belly catches Liam’s eye and he really just wants to sink his teeth into it and he definitely hasn’t settled down from what they were doing 5 minutes ago. He decides to place a hand over her hip instead, holding her in place and blowing a raspberry just above her bellybutton.

“Ugh, you’re disgusting,” She groans, goes to pull her t-shirt down, but she’s still laughing as he puts a hand over her face, trying to close her eyes.

“Nurse Loki, we’ve lost her,” Liam monotones, bundling Louis up in her arms and cradling her to his chest despite her protests. “She was so young.” He lets out a fake sob and Loki whimpers at him, pawing at Louis’ arm. That was definitely not a trick that Liam has taught him but he files that away for later, because it definitely deserves a treat.

“You’re so stupid.” Louis voice is muffled by the way it’s pressed into the fabric of Liam’s t-shirt but she’s gone lax in his arms, wiggling a hand out of his grasp to pet at Loki.

“I’m not the one who fell in love with me.” He lets his grip loosen on Louis a little so she can look up at him and she’s half smiling, her makeup’s a bit smudged from where Loki slobbered all over her face, and her hairs a mess now, but she’s beautiful and happy and all his.

“You didn’t really give me a choice,” She answers simply, because they’re not ones for declarations of love and grand gestures but they try to show it in different ways. Like tea in the morning or including Liam’s songs on a playlist or texting each other pictures of deformed vegetables with ‘ _made me think of you xoxox_ ’ attached to it. Kisses are a pretty good way to show it too, so Liam pulls Louis closer, kisses her nose, cheeks, jaw before landing on her mouth.

Loki’s still running circles around them and Louis’ fingers tighten at the nape of Liam’s neck. Liam has to be in the studio in about 15 minutes, Harry had texted about an hour ago with the words ‘ _giant watermelon_ ’ and everything’s kind of perfect.


End file.
